– I know Reichert is safe, but the 8th Congressional District’s right turn has prompted a challenge from the right.
– Dennis Kucinich won’t run for Congress, so now people covering the 1st district will have to cover the actual candidates in the race.
– Americans Elect isn’t working out so well.
– Maybe after his book on economic growth, George W. Bush can write a book about not going to war in Iraq.
Woke up kinda hungry this morning.
Think I’ll rustle me up some Pow Wow Chow:
http://www.bostonherald.com/ne.....position=0
Desperation shows its ugly face in many ways
No one can escape the times we live in
The answers are so simple and we all know where to look
But it’s easier to just avoid the question
http://www.politico.com/news/s.....76432.html
Looks like Bob is treading water until someone posts a comment for him to reply to.
L.A. Suspends Rogue Cops
“Seven deputies from the Los Angeles County sheriff’s gang unit are on paid leave during an investigation into their suspected involvement in a secret clique that promoted aggressive policing and celebrated officer shootings, sources confirmed to The Los Angeles Times Wednesday.”
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....lique?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Cops are human, like the rest of us; and police departments, like other employers, make hiring mistakes. Police officers are public servants who are authorized to use force, including deadly force, according to legal and departmental guidelines. Because of that, they must be held to a higher standard of integrity and professionalism, and officers who fall short of those expectations must be let go — because our safety depends on the prompt removal of rogue cops who fail to respect the limits on police authority on which our safety depends. In short, fire these guys forthwith — even if it was only meant as a joke.
@ 4
Now, now, Roger. Cops are union members and they simply cannot be fired forthwith.
Why, it is probably almost as difficult to fire an awful cop as it is to fire an awful teacher:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l.....OKOVaTtWMK
Public sector union workers. Gotta love ’em.
Or if you don’t, you still gotta pay ’em. They’ve made sure of that, haven’t they?
One union teacher tars all union teachers? I’m sure you’ll agree that one Republican tars them all.
http://www.lakeplacidnews.com/.....l?nav=5005
Republican pedophile busted. He was waiting for his underage victim to arrive. He answered the door naked to find the police instead of an innocent kid.
Republicans. You have issues, Bob. With little kids. What’s up with that? Don’t Republican women put out?
@ 6
Must be an important story. Isn’t this the second straight day you’ve posted it?
Similar to what RR said about police, teachers have a special position of trust in that we place our children in their care. Right, Steve?
Ergo, a higher standard should exist for teacher behavior, and those who fall short should be let go.
Wouldn’t you agree, Steve? After all, we have the safety and education of our children to protect, not to mention the reputations of the teachers who exceed higher standards. We have to rid ourselves of the underperformers and those we believe are not acting in the best interests of the students.
It’s for the children, Steve. Right?
Matt Taibbi’s got the goods.
Everybody’s quitting their day jobs. I know a bunch of people that have been doing well enough on their side gigs that they’ve decided to give the day job the heave-ho. Just found out this morning that another acquaintance is quitting her day job.
re 2: “The answers are so simple and we all know where to look….”
Put your pants back on Bob. We’re not going to look there.
@ 8
Interesting. FWIW there’s a suspicion that this is how the Climategate emails were allowed to see the light of day, rather than a hacking.
Some people think that a university employee gathered up emails under request using FOIA rules and isolated them on a FTP server in case it became necessary to release them. The server was an open server and someone found them and published them.
No one has ever come close to proving a ‘hack’. An inadvertent non-criminal release would go a long way to explaining why.
Thanks for sharing.
@9
Age range of these people, please?
“Isn’t this the second straight day you’ve posted it?”
Bob, with over 200 documented cases of Republicans being busted for pedophilia, do you really think I’d need to post the same guy two days in a row? Try to remember, Bob. Yesterday’s Republican pedophile was the one waiting for two kids and who answered the door wearing an panda costume. Maybe you should take notes because I’ve got hundreds more for you.
“Similar to what RR said about police, teachers have a special position of trust in that we place our children in their care. Right, Steve?”
“It’s for the children, Steve. Right?”
For the children? Really, Bob? But you don’t hold that same standard up to your own Republican party officials. Before it ever came to that, children be damned. So telling. So hypocritical.
@5 You’re new on this blog, so let me educate you. I don’t like teacher unions. They’ve worn out their welcome with me.
Here’s how the system worked in Washington for many years. Every fall, when school was supposed to start, teachers walked out to extort money from school districts they didn’t have. Parents complained to their legislators because no school meant they couldn’t go to work because, without the schools, they had no one to babysit their kids. The legislature invariably caved in to this parental pressure and consequently rewarded teachers for striking by taking money away from state employees for salary increases as their reward for not striking and giving it to the striking teachers. As a state employee, I got the short end of this stick, going for years at a time without cost-of-living increases, and I didn’t like it.
Teachers told us they were doing it “for the kids.” Everybody saw through that naked bullshit. They were doing it to line their own pockets. What’s more, the senior teachers who were already decently paid were more than willing to kick beginning teachers making $25,000 a year to the curb to get a few more bucks for themselves.
Do you get a feeling here that, after years and years of this crap, I finally got fed up with the selfish behavior of public teacher unions and their members? Well, I finally got fed up with ’em. I’m generally pro-union, but there are limits to everything.
Lately, though, we haven’t seen teacher strikes. They’ve taken pay cuts and job losses like everyone else. For the most part, they’ve taken it quietly, like everyone else. Most of the original reasons for having unions still exist in our society. I’ll support reasonable teacher union goals and objectives, such as reasonable class sizes and adequate funding for books and teaching materials. Education deserves more financial support in our state, and the reason it doesn’t have it, is because the top 20% aren’t paying their fair share of state taxes.
@ 14
Tacoma, 2011.
And with the bottom 47% paying NO federal income taxes, why do you think the top 20% are the ones not paying enough?
Jesus, even Bill Clinton wants to see the middle class suck it up and contribute to higher revenues. Your demagoguery soiled a mostly worthwhile contribution, RR.
@ 13 Noted.
@9 Many employers have used the recession to exploit workers by demanding more work for less pay. Corporate profits soared as workers were forced to work harder to earn less. Not surprisingly, workplace dissatisfaction has reached extremely high levels. The moment other economic opportunities begin to appear, a mass exodus from the worst employers will begin. Ultimately, the shortsightedness of the greediest employers will hurt, if not destroy, their businesses.
Oh, and guess what, when you destroy the purchasing power of workers by driving wages ever lower — they stop buying your goods and services and then there are no profits at all.
@15 I’m talking about state taxes, jackass. Specifically, I’m referring to the findings of the Gates Commission that the bottom 20% pay 16% of their income to state and local taxes while the top 20% pay only 3%. But if you want to talk about federal taxes there are plenty of high-income freeriders there, too.
What the 47% figure really means is the rich hog so much of the national income that half our population can’t earn enough to owe any federal income taxes under tax schedules Republicans wrote.
@ 17
Duh. Employers use a down cycle to derive more from their employees. Employees use an up cycle to derive more compensation from their employers.
Thanks for that review of the obvious.
With those soaring corporate profits come corporate taxes.
Your comment made no mention of the contribution of technological advances as competition. Employees at the lower end of the manual work scale will increasingly find themselves rendered obsolete.
It’s no more Barack Obama’s responsibility to find those employees a new job than it was George W. Bush’s when he was in office.
Stay current, learn something new, keep an eye on what is happening around you. If a computer can do for $2,000 per year what you do for $25,000 per year, that computer will replace you. And it’s no one’s fault.
Technology and market cycles march on. Deal with it.
“Super PAC plans to attack Obama’s ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright”
Help me understand this.
It is acceptable to attack president Obama through the words and actions of a church he no longer attends,
but…
It is off limits to question candiate Romney on the words and actions of the church he current attends?
Why the double standard?
@19 “With those soaring corporate profits come corporate taxes.”
What corporate taxes? Who’s paying corporate taxes? Not General Electric — they pay nada. Not Boeing — they pay zip. Exxon? Nope, they not only paid nothing, but got $156 million back from Uncle Sam. Probably a daycare credit for oilwells or something like that. Citigroup, zero. Goldman Zachs and Carnival Cruise Lines each paid an effective tax rate of 1.1% over the past decade.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/swee.....oidin.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Business.....d=16111671
Corporations don’t pay taxes, my friend. Corporations have never had it so good. The proportionate of federal revenues derived from corporate income taxes is at an all-time low. Meanwhile, corporations pocket 5 times as much welfare from Uncle Sam as individuals do. Oh, and btw, most of those individual welfare recipients are defenseless kids who are poor through no fault of their own.
(Full disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns the stocks of numerous tax-dodging corporations including General Electric, Chevron, and Boeing. Roger Rabbit knows a good thing when he sees it.)
@ 18
What the 47% figure really means is that the tax code is already pretty fucking progressive.
And as far as payments to the state, as a service business owner I pay 1.8% B&O before I see my first dime. I’m well above the 20% threshold and I would kill to only pay 3% to the state.
@20 Well, at least Rmoney isn’t financially supporting that church. But I wouldn’t vote for a guy who cheats his own church out of tithes.
We have to rid ourselves of the underperformers and those we believe are not acting in the best interests of the students/company/firm.
I have always wondered about this attidute.
Work the employees as hard as possible and discard them the instant they stop being a top performer or do anything that challenges the heirarcy. It must suck to become old or sick or with kids, or anthing that cuts into profits in that world view.
Predictably, rich Republicans expect everyone else to tithe, but don’t pay their own tithes. I guess their idea is the rest of us should tithe so they don’t have to. Just like taxes.
@12
One’s in her mid-20’s, the rest are late 30’s-mid 40’s. I think having zero to 1 kid and not buying expensive houses and cars helps out a lot.
@ 21
Don’t forget that GM won’t pay taxes for a long, long time. The IRS made a special allowance to permit them to carry forward their tax losses even as bankrupcty eliminated most of their debt.
When your ilk crows that GM is alive, don’t forget that perpetual infusion of non-taxation, special deal courtesy of the Obama administration.
GE had a tax-loss carry-forward. They’ll pay plenty this year.
Exxon? That $156M figure is from 2009 and it’s because they overpaid taxes in previous years, an audit showed. They pay tons of taxes all over the place. If they are paying foreign taxes it shows up as a deduction from their income subject to US tax. They’re paying the tax where they do the work and where they employ the people.
You’re a clown, RR. A dishonest clown.
@22 “What the 47% figure really means is that the tax code is already pretty fucking progressive.”
Bullshit. Somehow, the people you claim are paying all the taxes still have all the mansions, yachts, and sports cars; and the people you say aren’t paying taxes (actually, they pay plenty of taxes) still have little or nothing. Funny how that works.
“And as far as payments to the state, as a service business owner I pay 1.8% B&O before I see my first dime. I’m well above the 20% threshold and I would kill to only pay 3% to the state.”
You can count on my firm support for replacing the state sales tax and B&O tax with a state income tax. The B&O tax is a bad tax and should go. Washington should adopt the same mix of income, property, sales, and excise taxes used by 45 other states. The crowd is not wrong about this. Our existing state tax system is an illogical patchwork of irrational taxes pieced together by successive legislatures over a 100-year span and makes no sense at all.
@ 24
First, you expanded my quote without noting it.
Why would you pay the underperformers the same as the overachievers, if you were to retain everyone? What’s the incentive for the better performers to keep doing their best if they don’t get higher wage for being better? What’s the incentive for poorer performers to improve if they get paid the same as the top guy no matter how bad their work is?
You need to face both sides of the issue, not just cherry-pick.
@27 Poor, poor little Exxon, we should all feel sorry for them …
I’m dishonest? What are you talking about? I freely admit I’m just as bad as these corporations, if not worse. I’ve very honest about my mercenary financial behavior. I invest in the dirtiest, most corrupt, and most heavily subsidized (see, e.g., Cabela’s) companies I can find because they make the most money.
Although I don’t presently own Exxon stock (but that could change momentarily), I’ve made money from flipping Exxon stock in the past, and I paid no taxes on it, because the stock was held in a tax-sheltered account.
I’m utterly shameless about the fact I behave like a Republican so that someday I can live like a Republican. Why should Democrats do all the work and Republicans have all the fun?
I think where you choose to live and what country you choose to be a citizen of is up to the individual and senate Democrats should STFU and leave people alone.
This blog is Bob’s day job. Either that or he’s unemployed and doesn’t spend any time playing the stock market because he doesn’t have any money to play with.
@ 30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....dget-2010/
You said corporations don’t pay taxes. They paid nearly $300B in corporate income taxes in 2010.
They paid half of the Social Security and half of the Medicare contributions to those funds on behalf of their employees. Add another $460B to what they paid.
You’re a clown. A hack. Your gross inaccuracy about Exxon was pointed out in no uncertain terms and you have a juvenile response. It’s what you’re left with when the only other alternative is to admit you were very wrong. Hallmark of a liberal.
Bob probably works in the basement of the BIAW building for
5 cents a word.
Somehow Bob’s trying to turn this into an anti-union rant, arguing that the union is preventing these officers (and teachers, and by extension all public union employees) are standing in the way of managers being able to protect the safety of the public.
It’s a false argument. Anyone subject to serious violations is immediately suspended, with pay, while the charge is being investigated. This protects the safety of the public and prevents a manager from retaliating againgst employees for unpopular reasons. Managers hate this, because they would rather fire the employee outright and get rid of the union “troblemakers” in the process, but understandably this is an essential right of employees under the union contract.
Of course, Roger Rabbit is outraged by these reports, and skips through the process to the end conclusion in his comment. No big deal, there’s no reason why he has to explain the details to you, the rest of us understood it pretty easily.
RR
In @18 you throw out numbers that I show are incorrect because of other taxes you didn’t mention. Your response is to say that you don’t like those taxes and you advocate changing things.
That’s fantasy.
I pointed out that you were wrong and your response was essentially to say that you wouldn’t be wrong if the system were different than it is.
Clown. Hack. Dishonest.
@34 “They paid half of the Social Security and half of the Medicare contributions to those funds on behalf of their employees.”
Wrong. They take that out of what they otherwise would pay their employees and submit it to the Treasury under their own name.
You see, Bob, companies look at labor costs in terms of “total compensation package” which includes such employer-paid items as payroll taxes, health insurance, employer 401(k) contributions, etc.
In company accounting, all these things are treated as employee pay. When a hiring manager thinks about what a prospective hire will cost the company he includes salary, benefits, and taxes in his calculations.
The employer thinks only “total cost” and is indifferent to how it’s divided between cash salary, non-cash benefits, and payroll taxes. When employer payroll taxes go up, employers make up for it by paying less cash wages.
All of this stuff is part of what the employee earns in exchange for his work.
@ 38
Yeah, I take out what I otherwise would give to my children, my mechanic, or the guy who fixes my roof, and I submit it to the Treasury under my own name, too.
Somehow to me it just feels like a tax I pay. Maybe it’s just that ‘1040-ES’ I put in the memo on the check that makes it feel that way.
@37 Nope. In #18 I pointed out that high-income households don’t pay their fair share of state/local taxes and education is underfunded due to insufficient revenue.
In #22 you complained about the B&O tax; in #28 I offered to completely get rid of the B&O tax in a way that would make our overall state/local tax system fairer.
To expand on my previous comments, another of the Gates Commission findings was that small business pays a higher proportion of total state/local taxes than in other western states (roughly 40% vs. 30%). This implies that a fairer tax system would shift some tax burden away from small businesses to large corporations and/or individuals. I would support that.
One problem with the B&O tax is that it taxes businesses regardless of whether they’re profitable. Another problem is large corporations use their political clout to minimize their B&O taxes, which results in small businesses paying a disproportionate share of this tax.
I think a better system is to replace the business tax on gross sales with an individual income tax. If a small business prospers and its owner grows rich, he’ll still pay taxes, but he won’t pay taxes while he’s struggling to establish his business and isn’t making money.
@39 You compete for labor in a competitive market like everyone else. If you don’t pay the market rate for labor, you don’t get anyone to work for you. That’s how it works.
Well, I have to leave now, because I don’t get paid for posting on HA, but I do get paid for flipping stocks, so I’m gonna watch the stock market now. Have fun, trolls, and don’t get your dicks caught in the paper shredder.
Why would you pay the underperformers the same as the overachievers, if you were to retain everyone?
I can see a strong case for rewarding the better performers, and getting rid of the truly incompetent. But that’s not what you were arguing, You didn’t say pay underperformers less, you said “We have to rid ourselves of the underperformers” and “…if you were to retain everyone?”. Maybe you meant Fire them. Kick them to the curb. Turn them out. Discard them.
The only people you want are the over performers?
It would suck the moment one stopped being an over performer in your company.
Which is your real position?
You’re likable enough, Mitt:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154.....20Politics
@ 43
My position was satirical. Since I referred to @4 and took some of what he said with a substitution of teachers for cops, I didn’t think it was necessary to add /sarc.
Read @4 and @6.
I probably am more close to RR in thought than I am comfortable admitting on this one. If we’re going to cull because standards are higher in some situations, let’s do so, but not just cops.
It was satirical. Not my manifesto.
By the way, doesn’t the officers’ club which Roger first mentioned remind anyone else of the original (first) Dirty Harry movie?
The next time I throw a wingnut pedophile in your face, Bob, you might want to babble something other than “it’s for the children”. Just sayin’…
@44 “You’re likable enough, Mitt”
Do you really think so? From your link,
“However, even with the improvement, he still rates as one of the least positively viewed presidential candidates at a similar point in the campaign.
And while his favorable rating now nearly matches his opponent’s, when asked to choose which candidate they see as more likable, Obama wins by a wide margin.”
I have to give you credit though, Bob, as your link actually went somewhere. That certainly gives you a leg up on the self-loathing black man. Having been called on it hundreds of times, he still insists on posting links to nowhere.
RIP Donna Summers–
What an amazing talent. What a beautiful person, inside & out. She was every bit the supstar Whitney Houston was…sans all the demons attacking her. I still have her old cassette tapes. I think a lot of us grew up in the Disco era. She was the Queen.
@50
Hadn’t seen that. She was cool and left us too young.
The story above should probably be a reason to dislike Spokane, or at least be weary of the place. But, for those of us who really dig Spokane, the above story is another reason to love the place.
Guns Don’t Kill People Dep’t
In another of those extremely rare Mass Shootings of the Day (TM) that merely happen daily in this oversexed and overgunned society of ours, six people were shot (three killed) in Louisville KY. It started out with four shot and two dead, but after the cops showed up and a crowd gathered, gunfire broke out again and the casualty list grew.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47467018/ns/us_news/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: C’mon trolls, don’t you ever get the feeling that not everybody should have guns?
Yes, and you are one of them.
Hewlett-Packard Said to Consider Cutting Up to 25,000 Jobs
Some think HPQ is oversold. I don’t think it can be oversold.
Ask yourself – If you are a smart talented employee working for a company that is going to fire (that’s what a layoff is anymore) nearly one of out ten of your colleagues, are you sticking around or bagging ass?
Canning people ain’t going to bring about a virtuous cycle in IT.
Reichert is TEA bag bait. He may survive this round, but he won’t survive the next … especially once that Mooslem Canyan gets re-elected.
Hey, can we have an early good-bye glad your ass is leaving town for Seattle’s Catholic archbishop, J. Peter Sartain?
Seattle Protests Its Archbishop, Who Is Waging a War on Nuns for Focusing Too Much on Poverty and Not Enough on Opposing Abortion and Gay Rights
For you trolls who were whooping and hollaring with glee that the CBS/NYT poll showed Romney leading among women, I’m afraid that your beloved Fox News disagrees. A more recent Fox shows Obama leading Romney by 22 points with women.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....tial-race/
Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S.
Good news for the GOP!
COOL! pretty soon white males will get:
-preferential assignment of govt contracts,
-can produce lower SAT scores, yet be given college admission while non-white males with higher SAT scores get denied
– and of course all the perks that go along with the govt label “minority”.
shoe, meet other foot……
@60,
Yeah, i don’t think Puddles is going to buy in to your plan.
The Republicans are imploding.
Well Dumb Wabbit where do you get this info from?
From Forbes
We all know how much you tithe eh Dumb Wabbit?
Does anyone think the slobbering libtard loving media have anything to do with this?
So much for the thinking of Roger Dumb Wabbit.
#65 is for the Cub Scout.
I dont think that puddy would mind if the government looked at everyone equally, with no consideration of gender or race.
I could be wrong, but I dont think so.